Define stay. If you mean in a camping ground, there are many of them around. The Gorge Guide (acacarol@aol.com) lists several, and the state has many campgrounds in the area. If you mean in a motel, the Gorge Guide lists those, too, and reservations are highly recommended, especially on weekends. But as poor students (Im assuming youre referring to income, not grades), you might prefer to take advantage of Gorge weather. The forecast for Summer in da Gorge is clear and warm with nights in the 60s. That makes sleeping pretty pleasant any old place you can stretch out on the ground, and youll quickly find such places by asking the sailors who hang around the launch sites or the Hood River Marina. Everyone has their own favorite sites, and most are within 2-10 miles of Hood River. Few people who stay all summer actually PAY for lodging. Take a tarp and check the forecasts for the four or five nights all summer that actually rain.

Costs can vary by hundreds of percent. Many summertime Gorge sailors live in their cars and sail only at the Hatchery, paying only for the food they heat on their one-burner stoves and a little gasoline. Some even use no refrigeration, just buying fresh food each day at a grocery store and drinking/eating stuff before (or ... gag ... soon after) it spoils. Others eat in restaurants, sleep in motels, and chase wind all over the hundred-mile-long Gorge and out to the coast. Costs are ones choice if they can sleep out and fix their own meals. Again, ask other sailors where the cheap food is; its available.

The main thing you need to know before you arrive is where, or at least how, youll sleep that first night. It might take you a day or two to zero in on a free camping spot, or if that first day is on a weekend, motels could be full.

More important is this: never sit and wait for the wind to come to you unless you know for a fact that its not blowing anywhere. If your socks are not getting blown off, find somebody with a pager and find out whether you should move. Thats vital enough for locals; it;s CRUCIAL in a one-week trip.

Look for passing cold front and head East to Roosevelt, Rufus, ThreeMile, Avery, or Celilo, and camp for free, meet good people, buy fresh fruit and smoked or fresh fish and you wont want to go home for at least a decade. If its blowing in the corridor youll have to put up with the crowds at all launch sites. Solution: camp at Viento for $16 per night, launch there and sail downwind to the Marina and catch a ride back (6 miles west of HR), or better yet, lock your bikes at the marina and ride back, taking care to treat yourself to a fresh cold Full Sail IPA on the deck at the Full Sail house of dreams. Your camp food will be better home cooked of course, but a close second is the burrito at the roadside taqueria in HR.

Hello Jason
As noted before, there are many wyas of putting together a Gorge trip.For economical, and yet better fun,lodging, check out our Inn and Hostel, The Bingen School Inn.Nightly rates from $14 a person, weekly hostel bunks for $85, cheaper than camping, with kitchen, lounge, gymnasium, and Windsurfing school + rentals. come on by!!!
www.bsi-cgoc.com

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